There was a certain New York magic Wednesday night — an unfamiliar and unexpected excitement in the air. Knicks fans held their breath for Game 4, and a few blocks away, at the Town Hall Theater near Times Square, Performa: Live on Broadway — a one-night-only, vaudeville-inspired benefit — brought together 14 acts and more than 50 artists, including music, theater, dance, comedy and visual art.
The non-profit organization after the evening, Performa, was established in 2004 by art historian and professor RoseLee Goldbergnow founding director and chief curator of the organization. He commissions artists from around the world—many of them visual artists who have never done live work before—to create new performances on stage in New York City. His sprawling three-week November biennial has become a fixture and favorite of the art world.
The Town Hall has its own history of unexpected, extremely important nights. It was built in 1921 by suffragists who designed it with democratic seating (literally coining the term “no bad seats”). On a November night, one of its founders, Margaret Singerwas arrested on stage after talking about birth control. Her supporters followed her down the street, singing “My Country ‘Tis of Thee.”
More than a century later, the country was filled with impatience. Featured guests included solange AND Tina KnowlesActress Alia Shawkat and MoMA’s chief performance officer Lizzie Gorfaine and former chief art critic of the New York Times Roberta Smith. Artist Laurie Simmons was also present, there to see The music of regret—a three-act film premiered at the inaugural Performa biennial in 2005—presented for the first time with live singers and musicians. Meryl Streepwho stars in it, once told Simmons that he belonged on Broadway. Twenty years later, Simmons told the Observer, “it kind of is.”
Lines wound up the stairs as people waited for refreshments. Nearby, others ran hand in hand Barbara Krugerhoodies with red letters: “Want it, buy it, forget it.”
Amid the pre-show hype, the Observer caught up Ernestine White-MifetuSills Foundation Curator of African Art at the Brooklyn Museum. Performance, she said, has had “a real impact on the New York ecosystem,” creating spaces where you can see “a diverse range of artists and visitors, whether they’re young children or adults.” The proof was in the room: “The six-year-old in a gorgeous silver dress with her mother, for her grandmother—they’re all here.”
The show opened with the reinstallation of Chair/cushiona 1969 work by the legendary choreographer Yvonne Rainer. The dancers moved the white bed cushions, circled the metal folding chairs, sat and stood with deliberate, expressionless precision. As a long branch of Performa The Goudouna Society told the Observer, one of the organization’s gifts is the chance to experience historic performances “that our generation didn’t get to see.”
Next, comedian and late night comedy writer Casey Jost joked that he found old Yelp reviews from backstage in the 1920s. “These are all true,” he said. “Five stars. I saw a little basketball team, not yet formed, the Knickerbockers, playing on the road. And they were on a winning streak until President Harding came in Game 3. Warren G. Hardingyou tyrant.” Later, he left the audience confused as to whether his white-haired friend was dyed or natural.
Some fascinating acts followed: the multidisciplinary artist and musician Lonnie Holleywhich the Guardian named one of “30 acts to see before you die”, belting out the piano; and a sequence from Marcel DzamaS ‘ Living on the Moon (For Lorca)his 2023 commission “Performa,” with a dancer alive as a gold moth flickering, slightly eerily, against a projected black-and-white film.
Award-winning SNL writer and comedian Julio Torres Then he came on stage, waddling around with a curved metal rod strapped to his chest, a Diet Coke dangling from the bottom. As he reached for it, he lost and failed again. He explained, matter-of-factly: “I went to a Barry’s Bootcamp, and they installed these on us to…run faster. It’s a great workout, I’m not going to lie. It’s to keep you always striving for a goal that’s just out of reach.” Throughout the act, he slipped on his precious soda. When he finally fought his way across the stage floor and managed to secure his Diet Coke, it was empty. “Now, what did we learn today?”
Anne Imhof brought a mild pain with a piece taken out of DOOM: House of Hopeher 2025 work for the Park Avenue Armory; Goldberg, an old friend and now collaborator, had requested this very love song. “You have to do this,” Imhof recalled her saying. It opened with flashing red lights and a speaker blaring out the numbers — hours, minutes, seconds — as a single ballerina, en pointe, swept the stage. Between arabesques and plies, she walked with her hands on her hips and looked at the audience as if it were a studio mirror. It was the kind of performance that makes you put your hand over your heart. “Live performance is a vulnerable area,” Imhof reflected. “It doesn’t produce objects. It’s like fleeting, it’s like these beautiful, magical moments. You have to protect them.”
The lights came on. Red signs with white lettering were spread across the orchestra seats, and Jost directed the swaying arms to be raised above them, each tilted just so. From the balcony, words gathered, some crooked, some slanted, the whole thing gloriously imperfect. As a hint, Jost photographed it. People got off their seats to see: the message was excerpts from Barbara Kruger Untitled (Question)asking, “Who is beyond the law? Who is silent? Who is bought and sold? Who dies first?”
Another favorite, snake with legsentered the scene in the fog. He held a black boxing glove in one fist and a red glove in the other and sang “Wander.” He had been interested that night, he told the Observer, in “suspending disbelief and inviting others to suspend disbelief”.
Live performance has a way of doing that. Simmons told the Observer that she found the night beyond her wildest expectations and reflected on what the live performance had prompted. “That kind of immediate, unexpected, can-go-wrong thing is a lot more like what it feels like to make art. I’m not talking about having a polished show… I’m talking about what happens in the studio when you’re actually making things. That unexpected part, at least for me, as an artist, is what’s really exciting.” Watching her song performed live, she thought everything could go wrong. “But you know what? None of that matters. Everything is fine for now.”
There was a melancholy beneath her contentment. “RoseLee is keeping the idea of performance art alive,” Simmons said. She had arrived in New York in her prime. “Believe it or not, there was a point where the market was not ruled by money. It was ruled by ideas about the avant-garde. I would sit in a gallery floor and listen Laurie Anderson play her violin. There was so much to see and you didn’t have to pay a penny.” Goldberg, she said, “is keeping something alive that could so easily die with everything else that’s dying right now.”
Goldberg knows that fragility. In an age when, as she put it, “no one has time to read, watch or see,” she appreciates the opportunity for audiences to sit for an hour, their attention “fixated on new ideas.” Someone had recently approached him about a piece they had seen and said, “I’ll never forget it.” She loved him. “That’s a good maintenance seal of approval, that you’ll see things in performance that you’ll never forget.”
And just like that, in an unexpected twist, the Knicks completed a historic comeback, winning by a point with one second left. A New York miracle. The city roared, still in disbelief, full of hope. The unexpected, it turns out, can be very sweet.
